Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 661

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 661
The child sat respectfully, waiting for me to finish taking his pulse.
Strangely, his eyes gleamed with vitality, yet he appeared melancholic.
“I heard you’ve barely been eating.”
“What’s the point when it’s all futile anyway?”
The child seemed to have abandoned hope for treatment from the very beginning.
Yet his manner of speaking was indistinguishable from that of an adult.
“If you believe treatment is impossible, why did you come to Baekrin Medical Guild?”
“Because disappointing my mother would not be filial piety.”
“I see.”
“And that’s also why I haven’t taken my own life.”
I was startled by those words.
While fourteen might be considered adulthood in this world, to my eyes he was merely a child.
A middle schooler who’d just graduated from elementary school.
The child recited a poem.
Life in the world is like a great dream:
Why toil and labor so?
Therefore I wish to be drunk all day long,
And collapse beneath the pillars in slumber.
Upon waking, I gaze at the courtyard,
And a single bird sings among the flowers.
It was Li Bai’s “Spring Day Drunken Reflections on Ambition.”
I spoke.
“The world feels like a dream to you, then.”
“I have lived my entire life wearing the mask of a beast. As things stand, I cannot pursue an official position to fulfill my aspirations, nor can I make even a single true friend.”
Suddenly I recalled how all the mirrors in the separate quarters had been covered with cloth.
The child did not wish to see his own reflection.
Then he spoke calmly.
“Since life is ultimately like a dream, there is no need to struggle so. Though Heaven’s curse has separated me from others, I regard this too as part of life’s journey. In any case, I was born into a good family, so I need not worry about food until my death.”
‘He’s intelligent, but remarkably pessimistic.’
This was not the manner of speech typical for children his age.
‘Perhaps it’s because of Ga Hu’s bloodline. Ga Hu was incredibly pessimistic and pragmatic in the Records of the Three Kingdoms… and this child is the same.’
I scratched my cheek.
‘If it’s some curse or power I don’t understand, there’s nothing I can do about it…’
If that’s the case, I should give up.
After all, this Central Plains isekai magical situation has no solution. So I decided to do what I know.
Modern medicine.
“It seems there might be something I can do. Perhaps.”
Surely there’s no magical power lurking in the hair roots!
When I took his pulse, the hair roots were just hair roots after all!
However, I can’t guarantee it, because that yin-yang five-element magical phenomenon exists outside the bounds of modern medicine!
The child spoke.
“Are you trying to give me false hope with such words?”
“If the patient’s hair roots are ordinary hair roots, it would be entirely possible to treat.”
“No one has ever stopped this hair from growing. Even when I plucked out every single strand with my own hands, it grew back.”
“That must have been painful.”
This was genuine concern. When I spoke with sincere worry, the child seemed to relax slightly and opened up.
“Then I would like to hear how you might treat it.”
The child spoke.
Soon after, they glanced toward the mirror before biting their lip.
* * *
Heavenly deities, God, Allah, Jesus, Zeus, Horus, Nyarlathotep.
Please, I beg that these hair roots are not the product of Central Plains magical phenomena.
Let it be merely a genetic issue.
I prayed with both hands clasped.
I was at the point of wondering if I should build an altar and pray that everything would return to following the laws of physics and biology.
When I stepped outside, the head of the Ga family was waiting, seated directly.
Ga Wan.
She was the patient’s mother and had achieved first place in the imperial examination at a young age, rising to the position of Minister of Personnel. A woman who had been called a genius and prodigy since childhood, so sending her to another family would have been a loss.
Therefore, the head of that time brought in a groom from another family as a live-in son-in-law and arranged a political marriage.
The result was the current patient.
The live-in son-in-law was brought from a family far weaker than the Eight Imperial Houses.
This was done out of concern that the power structure might become unstable.
Since the first emperor of the Hwa Empire was already female, this was not particularly unusual.
“What do you think? Do you believe my daughter can be cured?”
Despite being from the Eight Imperial Houses, she spoke to me with respectful language.
General Yuk Heon was the strange one; normally, people from the Eight Imperial Houses even put neck braces on their servants.
“I’ll do what I can.”
“You’re troubled. At this rate, she’ll be useless.”
‘Useless.’
A cold way to speak of one’s own child. Yet, I was accustomed to it.
The higher a family climbs, the more their minds work that way.
Compared to families called prestigious noble clans, Gangho families are actually more affectionate and free.
“If treatment is impossible, please tell me. I plan to send the child elsewhere.”
She sipped her tea and set down the cup.
I spoke.
“A sanatorium.”
“Even if she is useless, she is still my child. I have found a suitable sanatorium, and I will have her spend the rest of her life there.”
Those words meant she would be confined.
That remark meant he would put her under house arrest.
A daughter covered in hair and disfigured is useless.
She cannot advance into official positions, nor can she form any proper faction.
Though she possesses intelligence, if it cannot be utilized, what good is it?
The Gaju’s decision came swiftly.
I pondered the situation.
‘Once she enters a sanatorium, she will likely never leave it again.’
It meant abandoning the successor and placing a new heir in her stead.
From what I could see, the current patient was the eldest grandson who would inherit the family, but if that happened, the second and third sons would lose their claim.
So they would claim the eldest grandson needed rest for his ailments, effectively confining him to spend his entire life without contact with anyone.
Once the new successor fully consolidated power, one of three fates awaited him.
Either the former eldest grandson would live that way for life, or he would be killed.
In rare cases, he might be released.
Since she bore the hideous marks of hypertrichosis on her face, I doubted she would ever be released into the world, yet gaining power was equally impossible, so she would not be killed either.
That was the current Head of the Gassi Family.
A decision made by Ga Wan.
“So Baekrin Medical Guild is the last chance.”
“I would call it a procedure rather than a chance.”
*Sip*
She savored the rich tea aroma as she spoke.
“You must have heard rumors about our Gassi Family.”
“Yes. I’ve heard that occasionally, severe cases of hypertrichosis are born into your family.”
“That is correct. Those born this way possess exceptional intellect, yet due to this heavenly curse, they incur people’s resentment. However, if we immediately strip away their opportunities, they will not accept it and will attempt foolish things. That is simply human nature.”
“So this is a process for acceptance rather than treatment?”
“Yes. If nothing can be done, then one will not attempt foolish things. Since the child’s nature is not inherently wicked, if she goes through a procedure she can accept, she will readily embrace confinement.”
…
“She has already half-accepted it.”
The child was in despair.
She had already resigned herself to the belief that her condition could not be cured, and she was preparing for her fate.
Perhaps she even knew of the lifelong confinement that awaited her.
I answered.
“Nevertheless, I cannot abandon treatment. Nor can I merely pretend.”
“That is fine. Rather, please treat her with your utmost effort. So she will harbor no lingering regrets.”
Ga Wan had already concluded that my treatment would fail.
She continued.
“Such endeavors grow more despairing with effort, and when despair becomes familiar, one reaches the state of desirelessness. That is where my child will go.”
She was right about that.
‘It was a treatment that every medical guild had failed at.’
No matter how many times the hair was removed, it would grow back, or so I had heard.
I asked.
“Then the next successor is….”
“It’s already here.”
She ran her hand across her belly.
It wasn’t yet swollen, so at first glance it appeared unremarkable.
“Congratulations on your pregnancy.”
“….”
Gulp—
She swallowed the tea again.
Only then did I realize.
The tea she was drinking was the kind pregnant women favored.
I suppressed my throat. I had things I wanted to say, but speaking them might be disrespectful.
However.
“Forgive my presumption, but… your patient holds your mother in great affection.”
To the point of citing her as a reason not to take his own life.
To the point of accepting even becoming useless.
Ga Wan closed her eyelids slightly.
Between them, I sensed fragments of deep emotion.
Soon, Ga Wan opened her mouth.
“Life is ultimately like waves—a mere fisherman should not stand against them. Waves must be ridden. If one surrenders to the current without resistance, even a small boat becomes part of the wave itself. Isn’t there a certain beauty in that?”
Her meaning was thus.
She knew how much her son loved her.
Yet, considering the power structure of the Sega, it was right to confine a useless eldest grandson.
If she were to oppose that carelessly, the ship called the Gassi Sega would capsize.
I asked directly.
“What if he could be cured?”
“It would be impossible, but if it were possible….”
Gulp—
Another sip of tea.
“If that were possible, there couldn’t be two fishermen. One boat needs only one fisherman.”
She meant she would erase the child in her womb.
In this era, considering Confucian values, that was an extraordinary metaphor.
“You could harm yourself in the process.”
“That’s better than having two fishermen. That child, despite appearances, has a keen mind and martial talent—he will steer the boat well. He’s grown enough that there’s no need to worry about his survival.”
‘The Gassi Sega members are famous for living long lives.’
Even in this mad imperial palace, they’re rarely assassinated.
Attempts are rarely even made.
They are exceptional fishermen, oarsmen who don’t resist the waves.
Yet this was possible not because they possessed especially good natures or were compassionate.
Rather, it was because they were cold.
They clearly divided what individuals could and could not do.
And when necessary, they carried out deeds ordinary people couldn’t even imagine, without hesitation.
‘From the Emperor’s perspective, among the Imperial Eight Families, Yuk Heon would be the easiest opponent to handle.’
How had Oh Sin managed to fight against such people all this time?
Was it only possible because there were two of them? Through their unique abilities?
At Jicheon Cheonma, he had managed everything alone somehow?
Could he have possibly done it while suffering from a toothache?
In any case, the Head of Gassi Family before my eyes, Ga Wan, was
Though she did not speak informally even to Jin Cheon-hee, who held a lower position and received fewer distributions, responding only with courtesy, her voice belonged to a realist colder than the north wind.
‘Wait. The two Emperors’ unique abilities—one reads people’s hearts and the other controls through voice commands, right? So the core members of the Imperial Eight Families who face such Emperors… they wouldn’t be normal either, would they?’
Watching her, the Doctor, Jin Cheon-hee, thought to himself.
‘Ah, I must never pursue an official position.’
Now I understood why Zhuge Liang had pursued his ambitions at Wuzhang Plains and spent his final years building a humble cottage.
‘This is impossible for my temperament.’
This world was also impossible for my Master’s temperament.
‘Even if he visited me three times, I couldn’t go. It’s impossible.’
Even if Liu Bei were reincarnated, I couldn’t go!

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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